Elon Musk’s X will have to reckon with a $250 million copyright lawsuit after a federal judge ruled it could go through this week.
U.S. District Judge Aleta Trauger ruled Tuesday that accusations made by the National Music Publishers’ Association against X were valid. If proved, they would show that X facilitated copyright infringement.
However, the judge threw out the NMPA’s claim that X was directly responsible for stealing artists’ intellectual property.
The NMPA, representing Universal, Warner and Sony, filed suit against the social media platform last June for not taking reasonable steps to limit copyright infringement from verified accounts.
According to the suit, X illegally has let users share and promote posts with copywriting music without a license. The NMPA says this practice has been going on for years but has worsened under Mr. Musk, who bought the platform in late 2022.
The lawsuit alleges that X has been using copyrighted music to further its business interests.
“Providing free, unlicensed music gives the Twitter platform an unfair advantage over competing platforms, such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and others,” the lawsuit reads.
The suit lists more than 1,700 cases of alleged copyright infringement with artists such as Outkast and Mariah Carey.
Most social media platforms pay a licensing fee to music publishers so users can actively share songs. These fees can be expensive, and contract negotiations can often get testy. Universal Music Group began pulling its music from TikTok this year after the two parties failed to reach a licensing agreement.
The lawsuit is another challenge to Mr. Musk’s relaxed content moderation policies on X. Since taking over the site previously known as Twitter, he has gutted the content moderation team in favor of Community Notes. The system lets users place warnings on posts that may be incorrect.
• Vaughn Cockayne can be reached at vcockayne@washingtontimes.com.
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